Cancer increasing in several subgroups

ATLANTA -- Heart disease remained the leading cause of death in America, according to government data, but demographic and geographic quirks thrust cancer to the top of the list for several subgroups of the U.S. population and in almost two dozen states.

In 2014, the latest year with adequate data available, 614,348 people died of heart disease nationally compared with 591,699 who died of cancer. From 2011 through 2014, annual heart disease mortality increased by 3%, whereas cancer mortality increased by 2.6%.

But cancer emerged as the leading cause of death in 2014 for Hispanic populations and for non-Hispanic Asian or Pacific Islander populations. Additionally, cancer was the leading cause of death in 22 states, as compared with two states in 2000, as reported in a data brief from the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), a component of the CDC.

The results reflected trends noted in prior studies and predicted by models of sociodemographic trends in the U.S., according to Rebecca Siegel, MPH, of the American Cancer Society.

"We reported earlier this year, based on data through 2012, that cancer had become the leading cause of death in 21 states," she told MedPage Today. "We also have reported the same trends for Hispanics and for Asian and Pacific Islander populations."

Previous analyses had projected that cancer would become the leading cause of death in the U.S. by the early part of the current decade, but unanticipated increases in heart disease-related deaths delayed the development, Siegel added.

The increased cancer-related mortality in certain racial/ethnic groups came about as a result of age-related factors within the groups. As compared with non-Hispanic whites and blacks, Hispanics and Asian/Pacific Islander populations are younger. Heart disease mortality becomes predominate among the "oldest-old," an age group more prevalent in white and black populations, said Siegel. Cancer has been the leading cause of death among non-Hispanic whites since 2009.

Since 1950 heart disease has consistently ranked as the leading cause of death in the U.S. The number of heart disease deaths reached a peak of 771,169 in 1985 before declining to a low of 596,577 in 2011. In contrast, the number of cancer deaths tripled from 1950 (210,733) to 576,691 in 2011.

In general, the state-specific trends have followed national patterns. As the number of cancer deaths increased nationwide, more states reported higher numbers of cancer-related deaths. In 1990, Alaska and Minnesota became the first two states to report more cancer deaths than heart disease-related deaths. Heart disease remained the leading cause of death in 28 states in the latest NCHS report.

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